Dark Souls Catch-All

I did kindle that bonfire - I absolutely needed to in order to get past all the silver knights and through the area before opening the doors. Those dudes are brutal.

Hah I thought so on the armor!

Huh, I learned something new from fextralife which might trivialize the O+S fight?

Spoiler:

Make sure you have about 15+ Dung Pies on hand (just in case you miss or die). Keep a good distance and hit them with about 5 or so to put them in toxic. If you can avoid dying for the duration of the battle the toxic kill will them without you even having to attack once. After one of them dies and you move on to the super form, just repeat the strategy.

d4m0 wrote:

I did kindle that bonfire - I absolutely needed to in order to get past all the silver knights and through the area before opening the doors. Those dudes are brutal.

Hah I thought so on the armor!

Out of curiosity, what's your roll speed like -- Fat-rolling, Mid-rolling, or Fast-rolling? Are you using a shield to block attacks, or rolling to avoid, or parrying? Have you tried just running past all of the silver knights? Sometimes just running is an effective strategy.

I've been using fextralife as my guide and I did not see that! I have a number of those items that I could use. I will definitely give that a try.

I'm at mid-rolling speed and I do have a shield for blocking. I'm sure my problem is that I probably just try to run by too hastily without getting in a good position to block or roll to get away from a better angle. Even from the main bonfire, you can't just run past the two giant guards in front of the big cathedral doors - you have to stop and make one walk towards you down the stairs partway and then run by.

I'm fairly certain you totally can just run past those two giant guards, with a well-timed roll (or three).

My question is how did you do against the archers on the run up to the bonfire?

Also the silver knights are fun for parry practice.

Which bonfire are using to make your runs? Have you tried the stair skip? Speed is better than armor, so remove items to get to fast rolling. Use a 100% physical reduction shield, hold it whenever your stamina is at max. Make space when stamina is low. Always move to keep them both in front of you. Only heal when there is a pillar between you and them. Make sure your weapon is leveled as high as you can get it. Humanity heals for 100%, use it when you run out of estus. It's farmable and common enough.

And have you received the rite of kindling? That can raise your estus up to 20 or 25. Makes it very valuable.

Pillars even broken ones are your friend in that fight.. as well as patience.. its worth just waiting and waiting for an opening. As soon as they break containment (i.e. one of them is on your flank) you need to disengage and get behind another pillar with both in front.

Its easier to kill Ornstein first then Smough.. since its way easier to break Ornstein away since he can cover ground faster and will close quick giving you some time to fight him one on one.

Lots of questions! I managed to get past those two archers on the first try, possibly got lucky or something. I read about it before I made the attempt, which definitely helped.

I've been using the main bonfire with the firekeeper on it. When I started at the bosses though I was back on the other bonfire, and I tried the stair skip trick but could never do it. I have no idea how anyone does it, because the railing is the same height everywhere on the spiral staircase. The image on fextralife shows the spot and it did not help. I'm using a 100% reduction shield. I need to remember to keep them both in front of me. I do get the pillars in-between me and them to do my estus recoveries, but for attacks what often happens is I go to hit Smough and then get stabbed from the side (or even just through Smough from the front) by Ornstein.

I have not received the rite of kindling, and haven't even heard of it! I'm going to need to look that one up because 20-25 estus sounds amazing.

Yeah, I think I may need to give up on getting Ornstein's armor and just going for him first to make the battle easier. I probably wouldn't even use his armor once I got it because it's surely incredibly heavy and I've got more of a dex build than strength (not that I'm doing a specific "build" - I'm just going for what feels right at the time... maybe that's one of my problems!). I'm sporting the Iaito as my weapon, currently at +10, and the Black Knight Shield.

d4m0 wrote:

Yeah, I think I may need to give up on getting Ornstein's armor and just going for him first to make the battle easier.

There's always NG+.

Without the Rite of Kindling, you should be able to get to 10 Estus - do you have that, from whichever bonfire you're starting?

Hah! NG+ may have to wait a while - I've got DS2 to play and Sekiro to return to!

I do get 10 Estus from the bonfire, so at least there's that.

I remember I saw load screen tips about it but it's down the catacombs.

Spoiler:

that area is the real boss, the actual boss at the end is super easy. It's past the graveyard in the skeleton area. You'll need a divine weapon to keep the skeletons dead until you kill the necromancers

The stair jump skip is worth learning. It's probably easier to do if you are fast rolling. So you can take off all your armor to try get it and then put it all back on again.

The tricky part is that you need to be running to jump rather than roll. But if I figured it out anyone can do it.

You need to make sure when you do the jump to be jumping down the steps and not up or even across.

Well, I finally got through Smough and Ornstein! I ended up taking the advice of a couple people here and going back to the bonfire that had Solaire next to it and looking for summon signs. A couple showed right up, so I brought someone in. We were invaded almost immediately by an especially annoying person and I was killed after a lengthy back and forth. After restarting and unhollowing again, the same summon showed up again so I brought that person back, and we managed to get to the bosses and take them down without being invaded. The person I brought in must have been very high level because they could take down the silver knights in one hit, and Super Ornstein wasn't much to deal with at all. I think I barely had to use two Estus's in the whole battle. It's nice to be through it!

Now I'm back in the Northern Undead Asylum so I can get the doll and head to the Painted World of Ariamis. Looking forward to it. These games are just so, so good.

Sounds similar to my experience. Though or perhaps because you have a lot of invaders there you also have powerful players wanted to help out people like you and me.

Dark Souls is now the second game I 100% all achievements. The other was Bloodborne.

TheGameguru wrote:

Dark Souls is now the second game I 100% all achievements. The other was Bloodborne.

Dark Souls was my first. Saints Row The Third was my second. Bloodborne will be my third.

It never, ever occurred to me to "platinum" a game until I wanted to play more Dark Souls after I had beaten it. Going for 100% gave me a bunch of "quests" to do - it added structure to my play. Same thing with SR3.

I’m playing through the Daughters of Ash mod for DS. It doesn’t add any real new content but does switch up a bunch of things to make the game progress very different. Worth a look if you are a hardcore fan because it’s also harder than the original game.

So I finished this a few weeks ago. I played a high dex build -- Balder Side Sword and Tower Kite Shield carried me through the whole game -- with mostly light armor (switched to high poise armor for Manus and Nito) to stay under the 25% threshold. The only boss I didn't solo was O&S, and I wonder if I could have given that I brought Solaire in on my second attempt and beat them. It was a great experience all the way through, and the only thing I'm bummed about is that the marketing and some of the hardcore fans of the game made me wait so long to play it.

... and then I started DS2 and I think I hate it, mostly due to how the movement feels coming off of DS: Remastered. I think I'll finish up a few other games and then try to come back to it, though my brother recommended going to DS3 first and then finishing with DS2 because it's so different than the other two games.

I went right from DS:R to DS2 and while it felt weird at first, I did get used to it. DS2 is a fair bit different, though, regardless. I still liked it a lot but I can see things about it that would turn people off, some of which is more like Demon’s Souls than Dark Souls.

billt721 wrote:

So I finished this a few weeks ago. I played a high dex build -- Balder Side Sword and Tower Kite Shield carried me through the whole game -- with mostly light armor (switched to high poise armor for Manus and Nito) to stay under the 25% threshold. The only boss I didn't solo was O&S, and I wonder if I could have given that I brought Solaire in on my second attempt and beat them. It was a great experience all the way through, and the only thing I'm bummed about is that the marketing and some of the hardcore fans of the game made me wait so long to play it.

... and then I started DS2 and I think I hate it, mostly due to how the movement feels coming off of DS: Remastered. I think I'll finish up a few other games and then try to come back to it, though my brother recommended going to DS3 first and then finishing with DS2 because it's so different than the other two games.

On the other hand, if you play DS2 first, playing DS3 will have a profound feeling of coming home, after wandering in a foreign land for years.

A neat Reddit thread with a depiction of the dark souls world. I've not seen it before.

Enjoy!

Picked up Dark Souls 3 during the steam sale. Level design wise it's better then dark souls 2. A moderate amount of ambushes, traps, etc. I had three levels I think in two that I despised. So far they've all been decent in three. Even the poison swamp one. Why is there always a poison swamp level....

The bosses have been okay. Nothing great. I actually think I liked a few of the mini-boss types more. While the combat is quite smooth. Although I'm probable going to stick with the longsword I started with. I think three is probably the toughest to sword and shield your way through enemies. Since the attack rate is higher and a lot of enemies can get though you block and keep attacking.

I do miss how the first one felt like a real place. It had much tighter levels and the lack of warping meant if felt real. Even if you got it later. Oh and the hub area in this one is pretty dull. Otherwise I'm having a good time overall.

Yeah, the need to warp to leave the central hub is a really odd choice, I heard it makes sense in some convoluted time/lore back story sense, but it does make the world feel disconnected.

master0 wrote:

The bosses have been okay. Nothing great. I actually think I liked a few of the mini-boss types more.

The bosses get exponentially better as you go. I feel like the ones in the last half are where they really got into their stride, boss fight wise.

master0 wrote:

Picked up Dark Souls 3 during the steam sale. Level design wise it's better then dark souls 2. A moderate amount of ambushes, traps, etc. I had three levels I think in two that I despised. So far they've all been decent in three. Even the poison swamp one. Why is there always a poison swamp level....

The bosses have been okay. Nothing great. I actually think I liked a few of the mini-boss types more. While the combat is quite smooth. Although I'm probable going to stick with the longsword I started with. I think three is probably the toughest to sword and shield your way through enemies. Since the attack rate is higher and a lot of enemies can get though you block and keep attacking.

I do miss how the first one felt like a real place. It had much tighter levels and the lack of warping meant if felt real. Even if you got it later. Oh and the hub area in this one is pretty dull. Otherwise I'm having a good time overall.

While the world isn't knitted together quite as tightly in 3 as it was in 1, there are far fewer dud areas and the overall atmosphere is probably the best in the series (though yes the hub area isn't all that special). They may not be as individually impactful because its the third in the series but the craftspersonship is pretty amazing. If it were my first Souls game I could see my mind being blown by Irythyll, the Dungeon and the Capital areas.

Agreed that the individual levels in Dark Souls 3 are the best in the series, but the fast-travel-from-the-start approach is unfortunate. The original Dark Souls is a great game and, imo, and even better experience - and being forced ever-onward in the opening half is a big part of that. We can all remember what it was like to go through the Lower Burg, then down through The Depths, then deeper and deeper still, through Blighttown and to the swamp at the bottom. It seemed like a never-ending descent - like with every step, you were moving farther away from safety and deeper into a nightmare.

Now imagine if you'd been able to sprint past the mobs to the next bonfire and just warp back to Firelink for a break every time you felt like it.